It wasn't something she had ever volunteered, and yet he took it anyway. He'd take anything, that Priest of hers – her candour, her sense, her sanity. His obsession drove her to limits that she could not fully understand, not yet and never entirely. All Assumpta knew for certain was the beat of her heart quickening as he drew near; the shallow exhale of breaths as they stood, inches and yet miles away from one another, wishing so ardently for a life that wasn't theirs to live.

And yet, they'll take it anyway, even if it's just for now, just for tonight. They'll take this covenant with eyes wide open and both hands searching, purposefully, for a tether to this delinquent realm.

It was up to him to make the first move – the Priest realised this all too well. Gender politics aside, it was he who'd pursued her – he who'd orchestrated this entire event, away from the prying eyes of his devoted churchgoers. Peter clicked his tongue irritably against the roof of his mouth with the memory of them, his friends – his parish. What kind of example was he to be? The guilt tied in knots at the base of his stomach and almost made him want to leave – almost. But then he'd only have to snatch another look into those enduring eyes – those eyes which had been a deafening siren call since he'd first clapped eyes on Assumpta – to know this was exactly where he needed to be.

Peter gathered up every last ounce of courage and placed his mouth against hers, for all but a moment. Fortified by her sighs, he tried again, pressing deeper this time, breaking the desperate hold of her gaze at last to do the thing he'd thought about every time he'd ever seen her – to kiss her, deeply and without restraint. Assumpta returned in kind immediately. This was wrong. This felt so alien to anything she'd ever experienced before and yet she trusted it. It was everything to her.

Painfully aware of his shaking hands he quietened them against her torso, gathering handfuls of loose fabric as he did. He inadvertently thumbed her ribcage, an unexpected slip which made this kiss, in all its innocence, something else entirely. Not an end but a precursor. A first act to the beginning of an affair.

They realised in unison that this kiss, as desperate and ardent and perfect as it was, wasn't enough. They needed more. Peter pulled away, on cue, completely unprepared for what was to come next. Did he want this? Could he even do this, really? As if reading his thoughts, Assumpta held his dampening head against hers.

"It's okay. Really, it is"

He breathed in her captivating scent – all soap and immersing pheromones. The hardness that he felt – quite regularly – when they were alone together, was an unwelcome distraction now. Peter did his best not to give it a vote.

"I want you, so much" he began, shakily.

"I know."

" – nothing else has come close." Peter risked a look in her direction. She caught his gaze with hers and its gravitas threatened to floor him. How could something as unique as this have found him?

"I know" Assumpta said with more determination this time. "You don't have to explain this to me. I know. I understand, believe me. I do."

She was rambling, she knew it but somehow Assumpta didn't care. After everything they'd been through together – the false starts and the cold feet – the awkwardness of their current situation was all water off a duck's back by now.

"It's just" she began, biting her lip to keep her resolve. "If you kiss me like that again, I don't… I don't think I can prevent – "

Assumpta needn't say anything else. Peter caught her mouth with his, once again, and kissed her deeply and relentlessly, so transfixed by his desire for the publican that all of his misgivings fettered away to nothing. He wanted her, for that much he was certain, but how far could that take him? To oblivion, no doubt.

"You sure?" Her breathless entreaty stole him back to the here and now. By way of a reply, he moved his mouth down the length of her body, trailing kisses in its wake. By the time Peter reached her navel, Assumpta was brought to her knees, both literally and figuratively as their passion summited to new and unfamiliar heights.

Far too easily, their clothes left them, balled in a pile at their feet. Far too easily, the grooves of their limbs fit together, like pieces of a puzzle which had been boxed away for too long. This was all far too easy – far too easy, until…

Creak.

Someone had come in.

They stilled to a halt. Peter hastily assessed their situation, hunkered down semi-nude in the cowshed of the abandoned O'Leary farm. This wasn't meant to happen. They were meant to be alone. Peter had asked the publican to meet him here, in this precise location because he had it on good authority that this farm had been left derelict for quite some time now. Even the teenagers had given it a wide berth owing to its proximity to the parish eccentric, Eamon Byrne's own cattle shed…

Oh.

It suddenly became altogether too clear who had interrupted them. The faint smell of woodbines in the cold night air confirmed the fact – Eamon.

Assumpta seemed to make the same connection in unison with the curate but she, like him, daren't move a muscle. They were – thankfully – all but hidden from open view, but still, if the sheep farmer focussed adequately enough, their cover would be blown.

Seconds felt like minutes as Eamon lit up another cigarette. Peter vaguely remembered the farmer had pledged to give up smoking for lent – yet another vow which the O'Leary cattle shed was to be a safe haven from. Just how long he would be, was not abundantly clear, but owing to their precarious position, the pair had no other choice but to wait.

The entire time, thoughts raced through the curate's mind. The gravity of their situation wasn't lost on him. Never one to hold his water, Eamon had the ear of the village on most social occasions. If discovered, the parish would almost certainly be the first to know that the Priest and the publican had been caught doing, well, whatever it was they'd been doing before the interruption.

But, as fervent as his thoughts has been, Peter couldn't help but look at just what he had here. Assumpta was incandescent beneath the moonlight. He drank in her alabaster skin which felt so completely right pushed up against him. Assumpta couldn't help but watch the way he studied her, at once completely enamoured and yet befuddled, as if cracking a cryptic crossword for a chance to reap its spoils. It was almost as if the curate was deliberating just how to approach her next, a predicament that rendered gooseflesh on every inch of her alabaster.

Eamon's far off smoker's cough snapped the publican back to the here and now but, to Assumpta's surprise, Peter was immovable. His eyes, foggy with desire, never left and it occurred to her in that instant just how long Peter had waited for this.

He wasn't a virgin, of that she was certain, but for a man who joined the Holy Order shortly after Cambridge, Peter wouldn't have experienced anything resembling this for well over a decade. But that wasn't all – it was her, it was them. For two long years they'd stolen glances from across crowded rooms. A touch here, a cryptic admission there – theirs was a hard-fought for love which had earned its respite. Which made the latest, woodbine-hued disruption all the more difficult to bear. Was a little peace and quiet too much to ask for?

When Eamon did leave, the mood was entirely gone – for the publican at least. His intrusion was another in a long line of reasons why this whole situation was condemned from the outset.

"You okay?" Peter didn't even try to disguise his disappointment about how the evening's events had transpired.

Shimmying into her cotton dress, the publican muttered a nonchalant hmmmm before rethinking her response, and giving his question the attention it deserved.

"It's never going to happen for us, is it?"

Peter feigned a good-humoured smile – "We certainly haven't had the best of starts."

"Doesn't bode well for the finish, does it." Her joke hung in the ether like the smell of woodbines. Bitter. Acerbic. Lost.

"I meant it, you know? What I said before, in the pub." Peter looked at Assumpta expectantly, imploring her to understand. To not give up so easily.

The publican thought about their earlier conversation – their reckoning of sorts. It was the only true conversation that they'd ever had – about this at least. Peter had lain his cards on the table and she'd let down her guard for once. They'd agreed to explore these feelings which had refused to shift. They'd agreed to go the course.

"All in." Peter's ardent declaration snapped her into the here and now. "Whatever you want, Assumpta, whatever you need me to do… I'm all in."

The publican felt her knees quake and her heart swell from within. Normally one to take words at face value, somehow these stuck for Assumpta. It all that she needed

"We'll make it happen."